RETOUCHING

Within my 8 week internship with Imtech Graphics, I developed retouching skills that applied to the importance of advertising photography. Given a photograph and the desired changes, the alterations must be made with consideration to lighting, color resources and composition which will vary in the retouching jobs and skill levels.

I worked on an advertisement project which required the photography to be edited in the lipstick products so that the shape of the lipstick bullets would be desirable and clean the tubes of the excess lipstick from the photo shoot. The retouching process needed to use techniques to retain texture and shape, but redesign the fifteen lipstick bullets to be a uniform shape.

Provided with the batch of images, were the lipstick products which were color matched to a pantone solid coated swatch book visually. Two change orders from the original pantone values were proofed to finalize the CMYK values I would use to color correct the lipsticks to the new product colors to be placed in the advertisement. The advertisement was given as a silhouette, though I have also experienced the process of silhouetting the image and desired shadows of a product.

I was given instruction by the senior retouchers for the editing process of artistic retouching in Photoshop. This includes secluding the editing areas based on the client’s request for shape/texture alterations alongside color, color correcting to a provided product that will be replacing another section of the visual, and personally painting in color and filtering shadows and new shapes for the visual.

The visual of the Laura Mercier lipstick resource is a graphic that is used in a magazine advertising their colors of lipstick to be included in the next season of products. The client referenced a past photograph we had edited and requested to change the colors and add additional colors for the new product line. This assignment asked heavily to recompose existing elements of the photo to create new elements, and paint the photo accordingly for realism. I had to precisely mimic the organic shapes and colors of lipstick.

RETOUCHING AND CREATIVE DIRECTION

I was exposed to the collaboration between art directors, marketing and sales and retouchers to achieve the desired look for an advertising campaign. Advertising campaigns are of interest to me in the role of an art director, as the theme and color palette of the campaign is decided from there. However, the retoucher will be assigned based on the nature of the portions of the campaign that suits the requirement for the idea of the advertisement and also suits the expertise of the retoucher.

This Avon lipstick advertisement is included in the Avon magazine and was currently being developed by the art directors as a potential cover for the next issue. Avon provided an additional visual of a past product in a past campaign that had a similar liquified design and requested additional liquified effects be referenced, and added in addition to their new photo shoot of the provided image to be retouched. This assignment consisted almost entirely of manually painting the curves in photoshop which mimicked those seen in a given reference. This assignment greatly enhanced my skill of seamlessly adding photorealistic effects with a digital paintbrush.

MODELING FOR PRODUCT/EDITORIAL

GROUP SHOT PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY

Within my 8 week internship with Imtech Graphics, I was given instruction by the senior retouchers for the editing process of product compositing in Photoshop. This includes masking products individually to be combined into one advertisement, retouching inconsistencies and requested alterations, color correcting the delivered products to the proofs, and finalizing that the products are to scale and archived correctly for a client’s future request to use the composition of the bottles for an alternate design in product packaging.

The collection of products in the left photo is the result of the editing from a client’s review of the raw unretouched proof (at right). This exercise emphasized methods of creating shadows and depth in a product silhouette, label shading and coloration when working with reflective labels and products, and adding in detail to the products’ lotion consistency for appeal.

RETOUCHING FOR METALLICS AND REFLECTIONS

This exercise illustrates what tactics were necessary to retouch images of items that are reflective and metallic, and maintain or enhance the shine of those products. Without fine skill of masking and color correction, a metallic object can appear flat and matte as the photograph that is produced. The retouching that enhances the color and bevel of details, and readjusts the shine as I applied, makes the image of the product appear more natural and can uphold expectation when compared to the product being viewed in person.

PRINT PRODUCTION

Within my 8 week internship with Imtech Graphics, I assisted the print production department manager with revisions from clients in-shop. The production process at Imtech Graphics provides guidance for the desktop staff of retouchers for color correction and color matching of high end luxury and cosmetic items. Brand loyalty and expectation is especially important in these product advertisements and the quality of editing and customer service was to be made to the same amount of expectation.